Submitted photo From left, Kate Pfouts, Trumbull County Historical Society archivist; Savannah Moss, TCHS collections & research manager; Helena Meeks, TCHS intern; Amy Fluker, associate professor of history at Youngstown State University; and Holly Meyer, Oakwood Cemetery volunteer, take a break from transferring Oakwood Cemetery’s records into archival storage boxes. TCHS received a $74,795 federal grant to create an online, searchable map of the cemetery.

WARREN — In April, the Trumbull County Historical Society received notice that a $247,144 grant it had received from the Institute of Museum and Library Services had been terminated in federal cost-cutting moves.

Luckily, all but $9,807 had been drawn down from the grant, Executive Director Meghan Reed said, but it didn’t instill confidence for the grants TCHS already requested for 2025.

This week, the federal institute awarded TCHS two grants totalling nearly $325,000.

“We received a call from Sen. (Jon) Husted’s office congratulating us on the award,” Reed said. “I had absolutely no inkling that the IMLS grants would be awarded this year in light of the termination this past spring. So when we received notification that they were not just opening up the program again, but that we received both grants that we applied for, we were absolutely over the moon. This means so much to us. It really is a game changer for us in terms of what our capacity will be over the next year.”

TCHS received a Museum for America grant of $250,000, the maximum amount allowed, that will be used to develop an exhibition design plan for the Museum of Science Fiction and Fantasy Arts, which will be located at 410 Main Ave. SW.

It also received an Inspire: Grants for Small Museums award of $74,795 for the completion of a program to create an online searchable map of Oakwood Cemetery, 860 Niles Road SE. With more than 35,000 people interred there, the cemetery’s population is nearly the same size as Warren’s living population.

“We have been working with Oakwood Cemetery for the past three years to scan and transcribe their records,” Reed said. “We’ve scanned about 80% of the records that are there, and we are hoping to complete this process by the end of the year. Then we’ll use the grant funds to purchase cemetery mapping software that will create a visitor-friendly map of the cemetery that we then plug in geographic points to plot each of the interments.

“Within that system, we can also upload things like a photo of that person, or if there are letters in our collection that they wrote, and any other like identifying information that is on their internment card that the cemetery has. Everything will be online and searchable for the public.”

TCHS is working with the history and geography departments at Youngstown State University and the Oakwood Cemetery Association on the project.

“We’re just so thrilled that we’re finally able to complete something that we’ve been working on for so long,” Reed said. “We hoped going into this grant program that it would be a competitive ask based on the strong partnerships that we had.”

The money for the Sci-Fan effort is the third Museum for America grant TCHS has received for different projects in the last five years. Once the grant is awarded, recipients have two years to spend the money.

Work on the museum started in 2023 after Warren native John Zabrucky donated about 500 pieces he created over 40-plus years for his Southern California company, Modern Props. They were featured in hundreds of films and television episodes, including “Blade Runner,” “Men in Black,” “Ghostbusters” and multiple “Star Trek” properties.

“The funds that we applied for are dedicated to developing the internal map for the space, what types of exhibits are going into the museum, the design of the exhibits that will go into the museum and bringing in an outside exhibit design firm to help us think through some of those questions and help guide that process,” Reed said. “At the end of the two-year cycle, our goal is to have a very clear, very usable document that we can use to then create and actually fabricate exhibit installations for the space.”